They say that in order to know where you are going, you must first know from where you came. I really believe that and have applied it in my genealogy hobby. I think maybe the time has come to apply it to my ham radio hobby, as well.

While I haven’t been a ham for very many years, I worked as an electronics tech for about 18 years –much of it in the Air Force, on radar and radar guided missiles on a fighter jet, but later working Civil Service for the Army, then Air Force as well. Many times I started to get my FCC license, but I had nobody to elmer me, and some of what I was studying was for a license for career use.

While working in electronics repair in 1983, a copy of “Radio Electronics” came (as it normally did) in my mailbox as part of a monthly subscription. An article in that issue on Nikola Tesla touched me like no other before, or any other even to this day!

Who was this Nikola Tesla? After reading the article I had to question, with years of electronic education, an A.S. degree in electronics, and specialty schools galore, why had I never learned more about this guy that had almost EVERYTHING to do with my interests at the time! I was stunned that I could have gone so long without being educated on this man! Sure, I had heard of the coils named after him, but little on the man himself. Maybe in my youthfulness I didn’t pay attention to past history so much? But it shook my foundations and made me curious to know more about Mr. Tesla.

Recently, my wife and I moved back into a house we were in before I got into HF. As such, it had no HF antennas or tower. So I put in a request for help in my local club, DARA; the famous hosts of the Dayton Hamvention. The club is huge, so I hoped I might get some help. I did receive two offers of assistance.

One offer to help was a fellow vet that raised a son by himself due to a tragic loss of his wife and the son’s mother. The man and his son soon were over and helped me undo the mess I made, and started on a new plan to move forward. Another great guy also helped greatly, and before we knew it, we started over on my meager beginnings on a tower, and improved and added on.

We had several long days and late nights as well. The XYL is a GREAT cook and I suspected that the man and his son had few home cooked meals the caliber of which the wife could put together. So we had some nice late dinners and stuffed ourselves while talking all sorts of ham-related subjects.

The son of this man has a name similar to mine, and he did most of the climbing and hard work. As such he really impressed me. His father raised him well and taught him respect and service to others. It turns out he has a desire to one day purchase a radio similar to my ICOM IC 7000, which I use for a primary station radio. He had studied the manuals some and downloaded one to his cell phone and helped me use the features built in to the radio that I hadn’t yet figured out how to use!

After thinking about this tower and antenna outlasting me, I realized that one day I will take my turn to go silent key, and this young guy is one of the few that will be working to carry on this great hobby and service to our community. I have grandsons, but they are too young yet to know if they will show any interest later on in life.

When Tesla came back up to me recently, I remembered the old magazine article, and the book I later purchased by Margaret Cheney on Mr. Tesla’s biography. Did you ever have something happen to you that just said you were at the right place at the right time, and it was supposed to happen just the way it did? After a base closure in Sacramento, I found myself working at Wright-Patterson AFB just outside of Dayton, Ohio (and yeah, it’s that place that has long had a reputation of supposed aliens being brought there! In fact, the bowling alley on base makes fun of it and has special “Alien Bowl” events and signs posted at the back above the pins showing aliens in cartoon form).

The place I was assigned was the Air Force Institute of Technology. I was working in computer support as a LAN Admin, and establishing and maintaining accounts, adding new equipment, maintenance on servers and more. I had changed my career, but not lost interest in electronics. I read something somewhere that indicated that the biography on Tesla written by Margaret Cheney was a pretty good read and fairly accurate! I ordered the book and to this day is one of the few books I have actually finished. It was that interesting!

At the end of the book she claims that the Department of Defense went into Tesla’s home and lab after his death, and confiscated many of his papers and research notes. She claimed they were taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. If this is true, the most likely places for these records to go would be the Air Force Research Labs, and the Air Force Institute of Technology. They shared a common library. I was careful to not jeopardize my career, so my curiosity remained mostly in check. But still, not a day went by when I wasn’t thinking about Tesla and his work being studied and possibly carried on where I was working.

So becoming friends with this young man who helped me greatly, I feel a sense of responsibility to help him succeed. To make sure he knows about some of the roots of this hobby so that he is better “grounded” in basic facts, to help him move forward. As I write this, I am not yet sure if he is already familiar with Tesla or not. But maybe, just maybe, I can pass on some of the history, to help a young man continue on in this great hobby and service of ours.

Maybe one day I can do the same with my grandsons, but for now, I feel an obligation to “pass it forward” and make sure a new generation was aware of a man I knew little about, but had a great contribution to my career and daily life.

The idea to do something with satellites again came from my wife. She doesn’t want to participate in the radio hobby, but she does see the value of it and gives me lots of encouragement. Back in Holland I made my own Arrow style antenna and heard some amateur satellites, but I was never able to work one.

Lo and behold, right after she mentioned sats I saw a mention of TAMSAT on our local ham chat site. After the CTARL and the CRA this is the third amateur radio club in Taiwan, (although they are closely associated with the CTARL). As luck would have it they had an activity day late last month with lectures and a DIY activity, namely putting together a Mini-circuit’s PGA-103 low noise pre-amp. I went there and made some new friends as well as seeing some familiar faces from the CTARL. Here some impressions….

The opening of the day by BV2OL, who is a teacher at the Taipei City Tech College where the activity day was organized. He is also heading TAMSAT.

BX1AD came from I-lan to hold a talk about the XW-2 or Hope2 satellite range which was launched last September. This was indeed a very interesting talk. BX1AD is one of the most active Taiwanese when it comes to satellites.

BX2AI introduced webSDR receivers and since I am using those too I was able to add some information to the talk.

In the afternoon we put the PGA-103 pre-amp together. All components were of the SMD variety, so a magnifying glass and extra light were more than necessary for the – mostly – old eyes that put together the kit. Here BX2AN and BV2BJ in action.

BV2AP took care of the testing with an R&S spectrum analyzer.

22 dB gain on VHF, a little less on UHF and above.

A big thanks to BV2OL (middle), BV2AP (right), flanked by BV2FB.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to put the PGA-103 into action, yet. The reason: I don’t have a shack at the moment.

The FT817 is a bit low in sensitivity on 472kHz so I was expecting a decent improvement with a preamp. To my surprise I am copying no more stations. In fact I am hearing just as many without as with! The result has surprised me. The rig sensitivity is definitely better with the preamp and stations are stronger but it is far from clear cut whether it is worth using it in reality. At the moment my 472kHz transverter does not have the preamp.

Maybe the FT817 sensitivity is good enough. In marginal cases (and these seem few) it probably helps, but most of the time it seems fine without.

After considering buying a new transceiver, I have decided to stick with the rigs I have. At present, my poor voice makes all speech QSOs an effort. I enjoy WSPR as this is really a true QRP mode and it tells me a lot about propagation, without shouting!

I’ll still “window shop” and might consider a new radio transceiver next year. I get by far the most fun from my $49 10m WSPR rig and my home-brew 472kHz transverter, proving that you do not need to break the bank to have fun. I am not against those who think differently – each to his/her own.

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